Tag Archives: wearable art

Picture this…a lovely room lit with winter light filtering through large windows…. The sills are wide and the ceilings high. It’s a lovely heritage building, Arts and Crafts-style; it’s the Port Moody Arts Centre and home to the Blackberry Artist’s Society. Dotted around the room are plinths festooned with festive paper and bows, neutral colors in contrast to the colorful artwork on display. You’ll find sparkling jewelry and rich hued weavings, lovely handmade paper. Ceramics, utilitarian and decorative, sit next to works of hand carved stone. Light shines through stained glass and framed paintings decorate the walls. Come see the delicate drawings, photography, and intarsia, hand-carved wooden toys…

But, what makes this a different marketplace? The select group of artisans who are members of this co-op devote themselves to their art throughout the year, exhibiting their work and selling it through their gift shop in the centre. To prepare for the Christmas Marketplace, each one of them has been working for months to bring you the best, the loveliest, the most beautiful of what they have created. When you walk into the centre, you’ll also be captivated by a Christmas tree just loaded with decorations made by the Blackberries. Between the tree, the exhibition and the on-site gift shop, you can experience and partake the best this unique Christmas Marketplace has to offer.

Stop by the Port Moody Arts Centre, located in the old City Hall building at the corner of St. Johns and Kyle in Port Moody. The Christmas Marketplace runs through December 23rd. Hours are from Mon.-Fri. 10-6 pm, Sat. 10-5 pm, and Sun. 12-4 pm.

Free artist demonstrations are ongoing: Nov. 30, ceramics with Pauline Doyle (took place today); Dec. 7, buttonmaking with Sarah Ronald, and Dec. 14, stonecarving with Tom Reid. Get a jump start on your Christmas shopping; come see us and you’ll meet a coop member who will be happy to talk about the artwork on display.

art/r/evolution, a ceramics exhibit hosted by cutting edge Italian artistas will be making its way across the globe from now till 2014. The grand opening took place in Paris last year and the exhibit will leave Gdansk at the end of the month. “It’s an avant-garde multi-media event featuring the works of twelve International ceramic artists (the Group) who have challenged the limits of the medium,” according to the Italian arts journal, thatsArt.com. The brainchild of Nicola Boccinini, who founded the Free Experimental Ceramics Association (CLS), he and his group have combined fashion and ceramics to bring us these works. When I learned about it, I thought, good timing, as I had been trying to fine out whether any new ceramic properties had been discovered. A week or two after I had researched it, I came across this show and group. Boccinini is “very focused on new processes and techniques that add to the properties of ceramic,” says thatsArt, ” thus making it suitable for more functional purposes than the traditional ones.” After looking into what CLS is doing, I have to admit that some of it looks very similar to the clay Joan of Art ensemble two friends created and entered in Port Moody’s Wearable Art Show, which will be covered in the near future. I think the idea of combining clay with fashion is intriguing, though, I am not entirely sure whether the Italian work demonstrates new properties so much as it uses them in ways that are seldom attempted. However, the group claims that some of the techniques used on the pieces are technological breakthroughs; you can read more about this here. Group members include Giuseppe Agamennone, Nicola Boccini, Ricky Boscarino, Francky Criquet, Marino Ficola, Przemyslaw Lasak, Pierluigi Pompei, Romano Ranieri, David Roberts, Malgosia Turlo, and GaiaPace and Alisa Dumas. The last two are fashion designers.